Yeah, so?

Today's workout called for 8 to 10 Yasso 800s. If you have done any reading or research on the Yasso 800s, you'll know that there is a reasonable amount of controversy concerning the workout. The Yasso 800 workout was named after a favorite workout of Bart Yasso, by Amby Burfoot of RunnersWorld. You can read about the origin of the work out here. The controversy seems to come from what might be a misunderstanding of how the workout should be used.

Bart Yasso had for years used a series of 800 meter repeats as a gauge of his marathon fitness. If he were targeting a 2:50:00 marathon, he would work toward being able to complete 10 x 800 meter repeats at 2:50, with a 2:50 rest. When he was able to complete the workout, he was ready to run a 2:50 marathon. Sounds simple, right? Apparently, it is a rule of thumb that is works reasonably well for pretty much any level of marathon ability. If you would like to run a 4:00:00 marathon, you can test your readiness with 10 x 800 meter repeats at 4:00.

I think where some people go wrong with this workout, is they head out to the track, run 10 x 800 meters as fast as they can, and then say, hey I should be able to run a x:xx:00 marathon. But that's not how it works. You are supposed to be in the middle of a marathon training program doing appropriate long runs for endurance, as well as appropriate runs to build stamina and speed. If you are doing this, you can use a Yasso 800 workout to test if you are ready.

Some people put it this way - being able to run the Yasso 800 workout is necessary but not sufficient. That is, if you can't run the Yasso 800 workout you aren't going to be able to run your goal time in the marathon. However, if you can run the Yasso 800 workout, you MIGHT be able to run your goal time. And that's where other predictor workouts come in to play.

So I did this research last night, before my Yasso 800 workout today. After my research, I decided there was really no point in running 8 x 800. The predictive value of the workout comes from running 10. Also, there's some question concerning the accuracy of the original formula. McMillan suggests that the traditional Yasso 800 workout predicts a marathon time that is too fast by 5 minutes for competitive runners (McMillan covers marathon predictor workouts, including Yasso 800s in this article). So being the perfectionist that I am, I took my goal marathon time at altitude and subtracted 5 minutes. That made the workout look quite a bit tougher than it had before making the adjustment. The pace is only 10 seconds a mile faster, but that's over 10 x 800 meters.

When I got to the track today, the gate was wide open (thanks to Jeremy Wirtjes and Randy Barringer at Rampart High School). So I headed on up to the track, took off my hydration belt, dropped my gloves, ear band and jacket on the ground and got started. The first 800 meters went fine. It seemed a little fast to be doing 10 of them, but the entire run was controlled. I checked my pace every 100 meters and finished exactly on pace. After the third I was really beginning to wonder if I could run 10 of these. The fifth one went pretty well, but it was hard to think that I was only half way through.

After the 6th interval, I found it difficult to think about running 10 of these. I only had four more, but that seemed like a lot. So I started having a dialog with myself:

"Do you think you can run 4 more of these?"
"I don't know about 4, but I think I can run one more."

Number 7 went okay, but still 3 to go. I wasn't sure about 3, but I was pretty sure I could run one more. I felt the say way after my recovery jog from number 8; I could do one more. My legs were getting really tired. When I finished number 9, the dialog stayed the same. Then I started the final interval. After the first 100 meters, I was 1 second slow. That doesn't sound like much, but I always run the first 100 meters just slightly fast and then I settle in to the pace in the second 100 meters. So to be slow, really meant I was probably 2 seconds off pace at this point.

Now the dialog changed to:

"Last one. If you don't finish on pace, the entire workout will have been wasted. You have to complete 10 on pace to succeed."

That'll get you going. And it did. I finished 1.3 seconds under pace. My fastest interval of the day. After downloading the results, I had 4 exactly on pace, 4 that rounded to +1 second (all of these were over by less than a full second), and 2 that were -1 second. And one of those was under by more than a full second. I'm declaring victory. Yeah, so? Maybe I can't conclude that I can run my goal pace, but I passed this test.

By the time I finished the run home, the workout came to 13 miles. This was a good one. I am a bit tired and I am wearing both my compression socks and compression shorts. But it was good day at the track and I'm looking forward to a day of rest tomorrow.